1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for changing the size of an exposure area through which light is made incident on a picture plane (film, etc.) in a camera.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a known apparatus, a pair of light intercepting blades are provided in the camera body so as to be retractably moved into the aperture area, for changing a size of an exposure area with respect to a picture plane of a film and so forth. For example, the apparatus may be used to change between a standard size and a panoramic size, where a camera body is provided with an aperture which defines the standard size of aperture corresponding to a film frame. The standard size aperture is changed to the panoramic size aperture by moving the intercepting blades to block predetermined areas of the standard size aperture. The light intercepting blades are associated with each other by a driving lever. In the known aperture size changing apparatus, the length of the driving lever is relatively longer due to design-constraints of the camera body to which a photographing lens including a lens barrel is mounted. A supporting member of the driving lever has therefore been provided at a location out of a moving range of the intercepting blades. It should be understood that the moving range is generally defined as a plane parallel to the light intercepting blades and within an area formed by the entire contour of the light intercepting blades regardless of the standard/panoramic positions. The arrangement of the driving lever mentioned above has been contrary to a need for miniaturization of the camera body.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an aperture size changing apparatus which can enable provisioning of a smaller and thinner a camera body.